


hold it steady

by defcontwo



Series: lifelines like branches [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: BuckyCap - Freeform, Canon Disabled Character, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Tattoed pre-serum Steve Rogers is that a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 01:43:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2173278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here’s the thing: the stars and stripes were always a little old fashioned. It was never about the flag, that’s what they don’t get. It was about the people.</p><p> Or: the one where Steve Rogers readjusts, starts over and takes up beekeeping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hold it steady

**Author's Note:**

> the second part of my AU where the serum stops working and Steve reverts to how he was.

_Aren’t the stars and stripes a little old fashioned?_

Here’s the thing: the stars and stripes were always a little old fashioned. 

It was never about the flag, that’s what they don’t get. 

It was about the people. 

. 

Growing up, there was this woman in the neighborhood, Mary Browne. She was a sweet old woman, kind but firm, had a no-nonsense attitude that his mother appreciated. She used to watch over him, sometimes, when his mother couldn’t. He remembers her in the way all childhood memories are kept close -- in flashes, all sense memory: the stiff cotton of her apron and the greying of her temples. The way her wrinkled hands would ring out a cold, wet towel before holding it up to his pale, feverish forehead. 

“Just think, Steven,” Mary Browne used to say, “things are much worse back in the old country.” 

Steve thought of those words often, later. He thought of them when his mother tried to work long after the doctors told her not to, eyes bright and skin flushed and muscles aching because if she didn’t do this, they wouldn’t have much of anything; he wouldn’t have much of anything. 

He thought of them the day he got fired from his fourth job this year. The day he sat down on the edge of his bed, the mattress on the floor of his mother’s apartment, the apartment with no heat for the second month in a row, digging the heel of his palms into his eyes as they prickle and burn, and let himself wonder, for the first time, if maybe he couldn’t do this after all. 

There was a reply, always, at the tip of his tongue, many years too late: yeah but here ain’t all that great, either, Mrs. Browne. 

She would’ve called him ungrateful. She would’ve been right, too. 

Didn’t stop him from thinking it, though. 

. 

This is who he was: 

Pale, bruised flesh pulled over thin, bony shoulders, a too-big mouth and on the good days, when he had the money to make it stretch far enough, dark, dusty charcoal smudges on fingers, cheeks, delicate wrists, and rough linen, the laundry be-damned. 

This is who he is, now: 

5’4” and not half as rail thin as he used to be, thanks to a strict daily regimen and a hell of a lot more money in the bank than he ever would have thought possible. A too-big mouth and pen marks all up and down his arms and all over his hands from idle sketches, even though he keeps trying to get himself used to using a tablet to middling levels of success. 

A Howling Commandos tattoo pressed into the length of his ribs, for all that every long, aching second of it had hurt like hell, Bucky’s hand gripped tight around his, as a reminder that it was real, every last second of it, not a fever dream but years and years of his life that he never wants to forget. 

Some mornings, he wakes up and thinks: all right, what next? 

But other times, some mornings, he wakes up and feels lost, adrift at sea, utterly and completely without purpose; finds himself missing the serum that gave him the power to leap across a sea of fire and break every rule in the book for the sake of his convictions. 

These are the moments when Sam would tell him he’s just feeling sorry for himself. 

And Sam’s right. 

He’s always had a purpose. 

. 

Steve lies prone on a mat in front of the TV, the news anchor on mute as his gaze remains fixed on the background coverage of the latest Avengers battle. MNN is on their fifth loop of the same footage and at this point, Steve’s least favorite news anchor is probably just talking for the sound of his own voice. 

Steve sighs, reaching a hand up to push up his glasses from where they were slipping down his nose. “Any minute now.” 

As if reading his mind, the front door opens and slams shut, the heavy clomp of Bucky’s combat boots thumping steadily in his direction. 

“What are you doing on the floor?” 

Steve leans up on his elbows, dragging his gaze up and down, checking for surface injuries. There’s a bruise just blooming across Bucky’s right cheek and a cut shallow cut straight across the right side of his collarbone that’ll stop bleeding any minute now. He’s not holding himself funny, not in any way that could convey a hidden pain although with Bucky, maybe that doesn’t exactly mean anything, not with the way it’s like pulling teeth with him sometimes to get him to admit when he’s hurt. 

But still -- minor injuries, the sort of thing that the serum will take care of within a matter of hours. 

Steve lets out a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding. “My physical therapist says yoga could be good for my spine.” 

“It work?” 

“Remains to be seen. You looked good out there, you know,” Steve says. 

Bucky crosses his arms over his chest, hunching in. It’s a small, self-conscious sort of movement, the sort of movement that still looks alien on a man that Steve once believed incapable of possessing a single self-conscious bone in his entire goddamn body. 

“Yeah, it was alright. Only temporary, you know, Sam’ll be up on his feet again in no time and the world will get their real Captain America back,” Bucky says as he heaves the shield off of his back and sets it down against the sofa with a clunk. 

“ _Buck_ ,” Steve says, and he can’t stop the frustration from slipping out. This is an old argument, now. “You know Sam wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t think you could do it.” 

Bucky rolls his shoulders back, unthinkingly, and winces. He must’ve pulled a muscle or something, from the grimace that crosses his face as he raises one gloved hand to rub at his right shoulder. “And I know that _you_ know that I ain’t exactly got Sam’s way with words. The fighting, sure, yeah, that’s the part I can handle. But the rest of it?” 

“I think you got a way with words just fine,” Steve says. He pulls himself up into a crouch and then stands up from the floor, making a soft, satisfied noise as his back cracks. “Remember last night?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky says, “but I don’t think America’s ready to hear about all the ways I want you fuckin’ me.” 

“Had a certain poetry to it, though,” Steve says, running one hand up Bucky’s uniform to tug slightly at the collar. It’s not the same as Sam’s suit, more of a marriage between Steve’s old SHIELD suit and the wartime uniform than anything else, but there’s something about the way it fits, about the way Bucky looks in it, a certain bearing that Bucky adopts when he’s Captain America that reminds Steve of years and years ago, of a cocky smile and that pristine dress uniform that Bucky took to wearing everywhere. It’s a good look on him, if a rare one. 

Bucky huffs, leaning his head down to knock his forehead against Steve’s. “You gonna do something about those eyes of yours, Rogers, or are you just gonna stand there.” 

“Depends.”

“On?”

“You gonna keep this suit around after you give the shield back to Sam?”

“Only if you promise not to throw out these yoga pants,” Bucky says, gloved hand sneaking down to snap at the waistband of Steve’s pants. 

Steve rolls his eyes, even as he threads his fingers through the hair at the base of Bucky’s neck and _tugs_. “You got yourself a deal, soldier.” 

. 

These days, a typical day goes like this: 

9 AM wake up. 

Bucky’s already gone for his morning run by the time Steve heaves himself out of bed, a necessary luxury that he forces himself to get used to. He can’t survive on three hours of sleep, not anymore, and it’s a practiced effort to remind himself that the hours sleeping are not hours wasted. 

Every morning, he allows himself the brief moment of bone-aching tiredness, the moment where he stands in the middle of the living room floor and groans, one eye on the coffee pot longingly, before he pulls out his yoga mat and starts on his morning stretches because even if he makes fun, his physical therapist is right, it _does_ help. 

At 11 AM, Steve stumbles his way out of the house on the way to class, messenger bag slung across his chest and the book of the week tucked under one arm. This week, it’s _No Logo_ by Naomi Klein, and he’s already looking forward to finding out what his classmate, Eli, has to say about it because they are kindred spirits, him and Eli, and whatever it is, Steve knows it’ll be good, knows it will be blistering and critical and _necessary_ , just like he knows they will exchange eyerolls every time the would-be investment banker in the front row opens his mouth. 

At 1 PM, Steve and Eli will find the park bench with the least amount of bird crap on it and plan next week’s fundraising event for the ACLU around burritos from a food truck. Just as the sun really hits its peak in the sky, forcing a glare on his glasses, causing Steve to squint and make a funny face that Eli snaps a picture of and sends to their co-conspirator, Kate, something in Steve loosens and settles as he tells himself, _this, this is good work too_. 

. 

“Rogers, what the hell.” 

Steve’s head snaps up at Natasha’s voice and then swears as the motion disrupts the equilibrium of his helmet. 

Natasha stands quite a ways back, one eyebrow raised and a look on her face that says she’s laughing at him a whole lot on the inside. 

“Rogers, why do you have bees on the rooftop of your building?” 

"Did you know that the price of honey has gone up significantly due to colony collapse disorder? My neighbor on the first floor, she owns a small business, a bakery around the block, and it’s putting a strain on her budget.” 

Natasha stares. “Colony collapse disorder,” she says flatly. 

“Yeah,” Steve starts, “it’s when -- “ 

“I know what it is, Steve,” Natasha says, shaking her head. Her smile is more fond than mocking, now, and he sort of gets that if they were two different people entirely, they might be on the verge of a sappy moment here. “So, you’re making her honey?”

“Theoretically?”

Natasha takes a few step closer, peering in at his bee hive. “Theoretically?” 

Steve shrugs. He’s well aware of how ridiculous he looks as he does it, beekeeping suit and all, and considers it a testament to their friendship that she’s not laughing half as much as Bucky did, the jerk. 

“It’s a work in progress.” 

Steve darts a glance at the beehive before looking down at himself and smiles with a wry, self-deprecating twist to his mouth. 

“Me and the beehive both, I guess.” 

. 

This is his purpose, now: 

Well, alright. 

It's a work in progress but then again, maybe it always was.


End file.
